Grounded ‘Mega Ship’ Blocking Suez Canal in Both Directions

[parachute]

Evergreen is one of the largest container ships in the world it should never have gone near a canal.

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by double u

3 times we had the chance to see it first hand - & the impression of "efficiency*" was not overwhelming...
if I "scale up" the hassle from our 34 & 37' boats to 400m....
& of course it's their land....

*seems the egyptian-arabic word for "efficiency" is "baksheesh"...

Baksheesh, squeeze, corruption... call it what you will .... is all around us.... some are just more open about it than others...

You want to see corruption look at the Brasilian 'carwash ' business..

But back to matters maritime...
My first boat was imported into Australia zero duty or paperwork.... but I recall a case of 'duty unpaid' Cutty Sark being dropped off to a custom man's residence in a leafy South Yarra suburb of Melbourne a few days later....

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by parachute

Evergreen is one of the largest container ships in the world it should never have gone near a canal.

Ships of her size and class transit the canal every day of the year...........

But I agree ... they have pushed the envelope just a little bit too far with these ships... and not just in regard to Suez Canal transits......

[chrisr]

Originally Posted by parachute

Evergreen is one of the largest container ships in the world it should never have gone near a canal.

i'm sorry...i've been trying hard but that is one comment that i just cannot ignore

you clearly have absolutely no idea what you are talking about and i suggest you leave this to the grown ups

firstly the ships name is "Ever Given". the ship operator is "Evergreen"

secondly ships this size transit the canal dozen of times a day, every day of the year. it is exactly what the canal is there for.

cheers,

[Island Time O25]

If such large ships are regular users of the canal why no provisions were made beforehand for such groundings? Kind of like residential skyscrapers for which there are no fire ladders long enough to rescue upper floor inhabitants. I understand the cost benefit yada yada but still one wonders why a multi trillion dollar industry on which the world relies for all of its supplies can't afford to keep nearby a few pieces of equipment large enough to quickly deal with the situation. I'm more than sure that the resultant quicker remediation of the three occurances already since 2000 would've more than paid many times over for any such equipment. At $6-12bln a day losses it cant be more than a few blns to have one on standby 24/7 for the past 20 years.

[GordMay]

8 other times ships have run into problems in the Suez Canal
➥ https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/suez-c...tory-1.5964551

[LittleWing77]

You've got it, Gutierrez!

Please see below a re-post of an insider's perspective (Post #70) from our resident expert, Pelagic.

Also, did anyone happen to notice? The SCA has outlawed journalists from going anywhere near the ship, so all the latest pictures are via satellite...

I loved (that's spoken in sarcasm) the live press conference yesterday where "His Excellency", the head of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA), thanked all the international offers of assistance - which they have yet to take advantage of.

So = Thanking everyone during a public platform, yet pushing away those outside parties from getting anywhere near the ship. Hm.

I do realize that in any crisis, parties don't want to be overwhelmed with managing outside "helpers" (plus, as stated earlier, the SCA doesn't own the ship).

Politically, the crisis is taking place in the SCA, which is Egyptian territory. Yet the ship is owned by a Japanese consortium, flagged in Panama, actually chartered by Evergreen and Evergreen's charter is managed by Bernhard Schulte Ship Management (BSM) and (one or the other of them) has hired SMIT to effect the re-float...! Makes my head hurt just going down that list.

There is obviously a certain amount of an SCA face-exercise going on.

Originally Posted by Pgutierrez

And then there is the bureaucracy of Egypt - probably modeled after the French bureaucracy, mixed in with liberal doses of officials looking for a hand out.

Originally Posted by Pelagic

I can sympathise with the fatigue aspect of transiting the Suez.

From my experience with Superyachts, you arrive, pick up pilot, go to standby anchor.

Then if it is ships first time, they want to re measure Suez Tonnage Certificate, make it a bit less for kickback then a whole series of games with flood lighting certificates, electricians' kickback to wire imaginary floodlights, etc...

Basically, Official Visitors all day wanting to do favors and Agent advising you to just play along and give gifts.

This prevents officers from getting any rest before transit.

Then you are on standby to join the queue next evening waiting for confirmation by VHF of order (usually based on tonnage).

You also need to keep an eye on Pilots after they board, as some have sticky fingers and like to wander while waiting.

Then 12-to-14 hour transit in close convoy.

All in all a very exhausting exercise if first transit for boat.

[LittleWing77]

Back to Tides for a moment.

Looks like the highest high water (HW) will be Tuesday, March 30th.

Tide Forecast
https://www.tide-forecast.com/locati...t/tides/latest

The coolest thing on the site is the range chart. It starts with today (Sunday, March 28th), then you see the next couple of days with the highest cones (topping off at 2.12m at midnight tomorrow PM/wee hours of Tuesday) then 12 hours later at 2.10m midday Tuesday, local time

It starts falling after that.

So my armchair guess is that if they don't succeed tomorrow on the midnight tide (local Port Suez time), that's it for their initial-phase plan.

From then on, they'll shift focus to getting some of those containers off - again, as Pelagic predicted.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by Sand crab

The pilot would probably be to blame but they are saying there was a complete power failure. Lots of big ships are diesel electric like locomotives. They have lots of separate massive generators that supply juice to the electric propulsion. No juice, no go.

Pilots and Captains, at this level, are extremely experienced and competent mariners. I doubt the grounding was due to amatuerish error, likely something like you say, a major systems malfunction.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

Baksheesh, squeeze, corruption... call it what you will .... is all around us.... some are just more open about it than others...

You want to see corruption look at the Brasilian 'carwash ' business..

But back to matters maritime...
My first boat was imported into Australia zero duty or paperwork.... but I recall a case of 'duty unpaid' Cutty Sark being dropped off to a custom man's residence in a leafy South Yarra suburb of Melbourne a few days later....

Just look at the PPE/T&T contracts and Pandemic relief payments in the UK..

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by MicHughV

if I was that pilot, probably a good time to say "f**k, there goes my day job..."

interestingly, some many years ago, I was on a cruise ship that lost engine power, but they had generators that ran off their own diesel engines...so there was electrical power, but no motive power, that's a lot of windage there, and that cruise ship was not a happy camper without motive power....so I can certainly see a container ship quickly getting into trouble in a narrow channel....

so now, the law suits will start piling up......

Many years ago, a freighter slammed into the old Sunshine Skyway bridge in Tampa Bay causing a span of the bridge to collapse and many to plummet to their deaths. There is a recording of the VHF broadcast by the pilot online...it is painful to listen to. Im not sure what happened to the pilot after that, but I expect it took him a long time to recover.

At least in the case, its just a world class inconvenience and there was no loss of life.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by belizesailor

Many years ago, a freighter slammed into the old Sunshine Skyway bridge in Tampa Bay causing a span of the bridge to collapse and many to plummet to their deaths. There is a recording of the VHF broadcast by the pilot online...it is painful to listen to. Im not sure what happened to the pilot after that, but I expect it took him a long time to recover.

At least in the [this] case, its just a world class inconvenience and there was no loss of life.

Capt. John Lerro was the harbor pilot, trying to guide the freighter Summit Venture, into the 58.4-mile channel that leads to the Port of Tampa.
The freighter was already dealing with fog when it was hit by 60 mph winds and blinding rain.
The radar went down when Lerro had to decide when to turn the Summit Venture between two of the Skyway’s main piers.
At 7:33 a.m., the bow of the Summit Venture struck bridge pier 2S. The pier came down, and so did Interstate 275 above it during rush hour.
35 lives were lost.
They died in the six cars, truck and Greyhound bus that fell 150 feet into the water below.
Wesley MacIntire was the only person who survived the fall. His truck fell off the bridge but bounced off the bow of the Summit Venture before falling into Tampa Bay. He was pulled from the water by the ship’s crew.


Lerro radioed the Coast Guard for help:

Lerro: Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Coast Guard. Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Coast Guard.

Coast Guard: Vessel calling Mayday, vessel in distress. This is the United States Coast Guard, St. Petersburg, Florida. Request your position, the nature of distress and the number of persons on board. Over.

Lerro: Get emergency . . . all the emergency equipment out to the Skyway bridge. Vessel has just hit the Skyway bridge. The Skyway bridge is down! Get all emergency equipment out to the Skyway bridge. The Skyway bridge is down. This is Mayday. Emergency situation. (Nearly screaming) Stop the traffic on that Skyway bridge!”

CG: This is Coast Guard St. Petersburg, roger. What size is the vessel that hit the bridge? Over.

Lerro: It’s a large vessel. Stop the traffic on the Skyway bridge. There’s some people in the water. Get emergency equipment out to the Skyway bridge. Now.

CG: This is the Coast Guard, St. Petersburg. Roger. What vessel are you on? Over.

Lerro: Summit Venture. Summit Venture.

CG: Summit Venture, Coast Guard St. Petersburg, roger. What is the size of your vessel and can you assist? Over.

Lerro: Cannot assist. We’re 606 feet long, light draft. We cannot assist here. We’re on an abutment. Stop all the traffic on the bridge. Send some vessels out here to render assistance. People are in the water.

A state inquiry later cleared Lerro of negligence.
The Coast Guard found that his decision to sail in zero visibility contributed to the crash.

Yet many factors were found to be beyond the pilot’s control: The storm that blinded the ship was not forecast; Lerro had no idea the oncoming tanker had anchored and was no longer a threat; a passing pilot never warned Lerro about the storm.
The Summit Venture later changed hands several times. It sank as the Jian Mao 9 off the coast of Vietnam in 2010.
Harbor pilot who downed Skyway dies ➥ https://www.gainesville.com/article/...s/604176699/GS

[MicHughV]

here is how the problem started

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Capt. John Lerro was the harbor pilot, trying to guide the freighter Summit Venture, into the 58.4-mile channel that leads to the Port of Tampa.
The freighter was already dealing with fog when it was hit by 60 mph winds and blinding rain.
The radar went down when Lerro had to decide when to turn the Summit Venture between two of the Skyway’s main piers.
At 7:33 a.m., the bow of the Summit Venture struck bridge pier 2S. The pier came down, and so did Interstate 275 above it during rush hour.
35 lives were lost.
They died in the six cars, truck and Greyhound bus that fell 150 feet into the water below.
Wesley MacIntire was the only person who survived the fall. His truck fell off the bridge but bounced off the bow of the Summit Venture before falling into Tampa Bay. He was pulled from the water by the ship’s crew.


Lerro radioed the Coast Guard for help:

Lerro: Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Coast Guard. Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Coast Guard.

Coast Guard: Vessel calling Mayday, vessel in distress. This is the United States Coast Guard, St. Petersburg, Florida. Request your position, the nature of distress and the number of persons on board. Over.

Lerro: Get emergency . . . all the emergency equipment out to the Skyway bridge. Vessel has just hit the Skyway bridge. The Skyway bridge is down! Get all emergency equipment out to the Skyway bridge. The Skyway bridge is down. This is Mayday. Emergency situation. (Nearly screaming) Stop the traffic on that Skyway bridge!”

CG: This is Coast Guard St. Petersburg, roger. What size is the vessel that hit the bridge? Over.

Lerro: It’s a large vessel. Stop the traffic on the Skyway bridge. There’s some people in the water. Get emergency equipment out to the Skyway bridge. Now.

CG: This is the Coast Guard, St. Petersburg. Roger. What vessel are you on? Over.

Lerro: Summit Venture. Summit Venture.

CG: Summit Venture, Coast Guard St. Petersburg, roger. What is the size of your vessel and can you assist? Over.

Lerro: Cannot assist. We’re 606 feet long, light draft. We cannot assist here. We’re on an abutment. Stop all the traffic on the bridge. Send some vessels out here to render assistance. People are in the water.

A state inquiry later cleared Lerro of negligence.
The Coast Guard found that his decision to sail in zero visibility contributed to the crash.

Yet many factors were found to be beyond the pilot’s control: The storm that blinded the ship was not forecast; Lerro had no idea the oncoming tanker had anchored and was no longer a threat; a passing pilot never warned Lerro about the storm.
The Summit Venture later changed hands several times. It sank as the Jian Mao 9 off the coast of Vietnam in 2010.
Harbor pilot who downed Skyway dies ➥ https://www.gainesville.com/article/...s/604176699/GS

Thanks for the detail Gord. I didnt know about him getting MS later...man, tough road he had.

[Sand crab]

Originally Posted by belizesailor

Pilots and Captains, at this level, are extremely experienced and competent mariners. I doubt the grounding was due to amatuerish error, likely something like you say, a major systems malfunction.

That post I had about a power failure was one of the earlier stories. Now they say it was because of high winds. I don't see the problem, there's no windage there.


I grew up in St Pete and had friends stuck on the Sunshine Skyway bridge but were stopped before the top. That was May 9, 1980 btw.